Introduction

Before we examine the Role of Postgraduate Education in a knowledge-based economy, we must know what comprises post graduate education and what we mean by knowledge-based economy.

First let me take up postgraduate education We have education at several levels. First there is the primary education up to grade 5, then junior secondary up to grade 8 and senior secondary covering GCE ordinary and advance levels. Education beyond the GCE advanced level is usually referred to as higher or tertiary education University education belongs to the last category of higher or tertiary education. But there is higher education provided by technical and vocational institutes and institutions, Professional schools like the Law College and the Agricultural Schools, and institutes like the Institute of Chartered Accountants, CIMA, ACCA, PIM, PGIM etc too numerous to mention. University education is only one segment of higher education. In other words, while university education is higher education all higher education is not university education. It is, however, noteworthy that in Sri Lanka university education comprises more than half of the higher education sector and almost in its entirety is financed by the state.

What is Postgraduate Education

Postgraduate education is very specific. It is education pursued after obtaining a first degree or a bachelor’s degree, or education continued after completing undergraduate education. or where entry qualification to it is a first degree or an equivalent of a first degree. From this, however, one should not be carried away with the idea that postgraduate education can be pursued only in a university. It can be and is being provided not only at universities but at other institutes and institutions of higher or tertiary learning as well, some of which I have already mentioned. I shall, however, confine myself, in my address to you this morning, to university postgraduate education, because that is what, you are concerned.

Postgraduate education is of critical importance to any economy. It not only provides the professionalism needed for the growth of a country but also the core and the thrust of the intellectual life of it. There is a big difference between the aims of university education in general, and post graduate education in particular. The former should concentrate on equipping students with a critical mind and nurturing an understanding and appreciation of the values of their own and of societies around them. This is, of course, not to deny that they should learn to be socially responsible and economically productive when they leave the university. Post graduate education goes beyond this. Its has a specific aim : that is to provide the necessary professional skill or training to engage in a specific profession, and in contrast to undergraduate education, there is a greater emphasis on self learning and research in post graduate education

In a globally competitive world, universities must also change by revising their curricula and courses, and introducing new ones in place of the old outdated ones, in order to meet the changing needs of the world economy. Needless to underscore here that postgraduate education also must change alongside in keeping with the global changes and new competing demands on the economy. That is the only way, Sri Lankan universities can become players in the highly competitive knowledge-based global market and contribute to sustained growth of the economy of the country.

Sri Lankan Scene

Post graduate education in our country is of recent origin. For that matter, even our university education, in the modern sense, that is leaving aside pirivena education, is not even a hundred years old. It goes back to only 1921 when the University College was established affiliated to the London University, and which, 21 years later in 1942, was amalgamated with the Ceylon Medical College to form the University of Ceylon with only 904 undergraduates on roll. It had to begin with only four Faculties of Arts, Oriental Studies, Science and Medicine. Although Sri Lanka was a Plantation Economy with Tea, Rubber and Coconut, contributing more than one third of the Gross Domestic Product there was not even a Department of Agriculture in the University, leave aside a Faculty.

The University of Ceylon was essentially an undergraduate teaching university. There was no post graduate studies or research, in the first decade of its establishment Even the little research in regard to Tea, Rubber and Coconut was done at the Government Tea, Rubber and Coconut Research Institutes. respectively. For the next two decades too, not much attention was paid to postgraduate education, or studies as such, even though by this time, there were six universities. There were, of course, a few random cases registered for higher degrees, mainly Master’s, most of whom were junior staff members. Even by 1975/76, of a total enrolment of nearly 12,500, there were only about 400 registered for Master’s and 16 for Ph.D, working out to less than 3.5 %.of the total enrolment. Of them too, the majority were external and part-time, most whom did not eventually complete..

The first seeds of formal postgraduate education were planted with the establishment of the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine in 1974, and the Postgraduate Institute of Agriculture and the Post graduate Institute of Pali and Buddhist studies in 1975, under the auspices of the old University Act of 1972. Three other Post graduate Institutes were established after 1978 under the new Universities Act No. 16 of 1978, namely the Postgraduate Institutes of Archaeology, Management and Science. Post graduate Studies got a booster dose with the establishment of Faculties of Graduate Studies in several of our universities, since the late eighties.

The Role of Postgraduate Education in a Knowledge-based Economy

Having thus briefly spelt out the evolution of postgraduate studies in our university system, let me now come to the thrust of my presentation, the role of postgraduate education or studies in a knowledge-based economy. What is a knowledge-based economy? Before the advent of the ICT revolution and the globalization propelled by it, the economies specialised on the basis of comparative cost advantage. Rapid advances in transport, information and communication technology have completely changed this scenario, and the economies of the world have come to closer integration with one another than ever before and have to depend on competitive advantage determined by new and increasing knowledge, for their competitive survival and growth, rather than on comparative advantage based on relative factor endowment. Highly developed , high income countries like Japan, Hongkong and Singapore are good examples of knowledge based economies.

With relatively low factor endowments or poverty of natural resources they have been developing much faster than resource-rich economies.

In such knowledge-based economies, ICT, R & D and S & T play a critical role. Applied research relevant to the needs of the economy takes precedence over basic or fundamental research. In such economy. postgraduate education, as a whole, is professionalised in order to provide the required skills rather than be academy-oriented. They attributes comprise, in other words, the engine of growth in a knowledge-competitive economy.

Our country has a long way to go to become a knowledge-based economy and enjoy competitive advantage. At present she is ranked 70th out of 130 countries covered by the Global Competitive Index with a value of 3.99 in a scale of 0-10, more than half the way down This is manifest in as low an annual R & D expenditure of less than 0.2 % of GDP and a number of researchers of 128 per 1 million people. Even though these indicators are slightly better than the average for South Asia, they are far below those of East Asia and the Pacific and the high-income OECD countries. In the former they are respectively 1.6% and 722, while in the latter as high as 2.4 % and 3,807. The number of internet users in our country is also as low as 14 for 1,000 people, in comparison with 67 and 55 of Pakistan and India respectively. (Ref : HDR 2007/2008 Table 13) even though this number may be fast catching up.

Our Postgraduate Studies have not made any significant contribution to the development of a knowledge-based economy or enhancement of the competitiveness of the economy. Sri Lankan universities , as I stated at the beginning, developed as undergraduate teaching institutions. Over-concentration on undergraduate teaching has taken its toll on postgraduate education. Three "E" attributes of equity, excellence and efficiency of education in general applies even more strongly to post graduate education. In regard to these attributes, post graduate education has fallen far short of what is required of a knowledge-based economy. At the end of the most recent academic year of 2006/2007 (2007 calendar year), of a total enrolment of 80,000 only 4,900 or 6.1% (the bulk of whom were for Diploma) were enrolled in post graduate education. Most of the research done at this level has been found wanting in its excellence, or in relevance to the needs of a growing economy. I have some personal knowledge in this regard. I have chaired and evaluated the research presented at the Research Sessions, (I must admit that mine was confined to social sciences) of a couple of universities in several years. Most of the research presented was theoretical and has been of little relevance for practical application. Their contribution to a knowledge-based economy by way of enhancement of R & D has been minimal. The dismally low number of university research cited in the Citation Index amply proves this. According to the World ISI Standard ,, the contribution of Sri Lanka has been negligible. It was only 230 SCI articles in 2004 (the latest year for which data are available). The contribution of Social Sciences to this was an atrociously small number of 2. The contribution of only health sciences with 70 articles is worthy of any note.

Causes of, and Remedies for, the Low Level Development of Postgraduate Education

Several factors may be responsible for this low level of development of postgraduate education.. A few among them are undue emphasis on foreign postgraduate degrees, inadequacy of funds and lack of incentives for continuance with post graduate studies, the dearth of qualified, competent teachers, lack of due emphasis for research in the academic promotional ladder of universities.( There are, to my knowledge, professors today who have not produced a single peer-reviewed journal article and who have got to that position with effluxion of time), and the NGO-based research to which our dons are lured by good and easy money as well as other outside monetarily lucrative assignments which keep them away from the campus most of the time. Qualified teachers with long research experience who can inspire students are crucial if a university wishes to develop post graduate schools of excellence. In this context, I may add here the words of wisdom of a famous teacher, William A Ward : There are four types of university teachers, the mediocre one who tells or (sic dictates), the good one who explains, the superior who demonstrates and the great teacher who inspires. I must regretfully note here that the vast majority of our teachers are those who tell or dictate only, and those who inspire are a rarity while there is a minority of those who explain and demonstrate.

A knowledge-based economy needs to continuously add new knowledge and new techniques and be innovative in order to remain competitive in this highly integrated or globalised world. To be able to contribute to this end, postgraduate institutes or schools or faculties must have trained experienced researchers or professionals or teachers who can inspire their students. Then only they can enrich the intellectual life of the country as expected of them.

Conclusion

The prestige of a university, or its ranking among the rest, depends upon the new knowledge it creates yearly by its research and other publications rather than on the number of graduates it produces. Towards this end, its post graduate schools must be centres of excellence. As I mentioned before, access to post graduate education in our country is very poor. To increase the access to it, and even more importantly, to enhance its excellence or relevance, more funds must be allocated to it. More funds would enable it to attract the staff of the right caliber, provide the state of the art facilities and incentivise both the staff and the students to continue with it. Then it should be able to be integrally linked with the development process and meet the needs of the economy and fulfill an effective role in a knowledge-based economy. In my view, only the Postgraduate Institute of Management of the Sri Jayewadenepura University and the postgraduate section of the School of Computing of the University of Colombo, and perhaps, to some extent, the Post Graduate Institute of Medicine. would be able to perform this role.

Unless Sri Lanka is able to develop its university system with such Centres of Excellence, the mission and through it the vision of the UGC, which I now quote in conclusion, will be only empty rhetoric.

Vision

To develop a university system of the highest quality appropriate to national needs and aspirations, in keeping with global trends.

Mission

To promote and sustain through resource allocation, a widely accessible university system that is accountable to the public and dedicated to the highest levels of learning, professional training and research, relevant to the needs of the country, by facilitating in partnership with other stakeholders of higher education the diversification and the assurance of quality of academic programmes and the emergence of centres of excellence in teaching and research.